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Notes from the Home - January 5, 2016

Al has not had dinner in the dining
room for three weeks, maybe a month. The problem is his legs. He is retaining
liquids; his feet are beginning to look like the Goodyear Blimp and his legs
resemble huge over-stuffed sausages. The last time he came down to dinner, he
struggled, often unsuccessfully, to stay awake. During those few moments when
he was awake and aware, he told us his knees were killing him.

I followed him to his apartment
that night. Fortunately, he made it without incident; I wouldn’t have been much
help had he fallen. “I think I’m going to have a movement,” he said, as he went
in the bathroom. Jim came by a few minutes later to drop off two elastic
sleeves. He said there was copper in the material, and Al should pull them up
over his knees, and the sleeves would ease the pain. When Al came out of the
bathroom, he went directly to bed. I put the sleeves on the table, and once Al
got covered up and comfortable, I went to my apartment and watched Jeopardy.

The next morning, as I wheeled my
way into Al’s apartment, he waved the sleeves at me and asked, “What the hell
are these goddamn things?” I told him what Jim had told me. “Do they work?” “Well,
Jim said they do?” “What do you want me to do?” I told him to stick his foot
through the sleeve and pull it up so it covered the knee. For the next ten
minutes, Al repeatedly asked those questions, and I kept giving him the same
answers. Eventually, he slipped his bare right foot through one of the sleeves.
He managed to get it halfway up his swollen lower leg before it would go no
further. He looked at me as if he was about to say, “This is another fine mess
you’ve gotten us into, Ollie.” Instead he said, “What the fuck do I do now?
Shit.” I suggested he take it off. He did.

A few minutes passed before I got
Al’s oxygen tube and told him he ought to put it on. He stared at it for a
while, located the part that fits in his nostrils, stared at that a few more
minutes and said, “Am I supposed to stick this up my nose? Or do I stick it up
my ass? Tom, I ought to shove this fucking thing up your ass.” He stared at the
“fucking thing” for a minute or two, and then slipped it on. Not having to
fight quite so hard to breath didn’t greatly improve his mood, but it did help.

Al has had some better days, too.
Some days he almost seems like his old self. Other days, though, he says he
doesn’t know where he is, or what’s going on, or why he’s still here. This
morning, he came very close to crying. “Tom, I can’t even think anymore. What’s
happening to me?” he asked several times.

There are times I when wonder if
I’m cut out to be Al’s confidant. Many of his struggles are also my struggles. “I
can’t hardly move my legs anymore,” he’ll say. “Neither can I,” I say to
myself.

“My balance is so damn bad, every
time I stand up I’m sure I’m going to fall flat on my fucking face,” he says.
And I think, “I’ve felt that way for almost ten years.”

“I’m so damn tired. All I want to
do is crawl back in bed and sleep,” he’ll say. “I’m twenty-four years younger
than you, and there are way, way too many days when all I want to do is crawl
back in bed,” I mumble. “What did you say?” Al asks. “Nothing. Just clearing my
throat.”

“All I do is rot away in this
fucking chair the whole damn day,” he says. “Me, too.” “What do we do now?” Al
asks. “I don’t know.”

Many times I have left Al’s
apartment feeling down about my situation. It is hard to believe I’ve
boosted Al’s mood, when mine will require some heavy lifting to get it back
where it should be. Then I wonder if I’m being whiney, or am I just being
honest.

Hell if I
know.

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